Welcome to U-HAC INTERNATIONAL.

Mission statement:

"Through educational and collaborative experiences in the arts of all cultures,
U-HAC International provides inspiration, nourishment and energy, with the utmost respect for the earth's environment, to individuals and communities worldwide."


U-HAC INTERNATIONAL (otherwise known as Unity Hills Arts Centers International) is thrilled to announce the establishment of its new home base: a historic, fifteen room, circa 1776 farmhouse built on five acres of lush rolling hills and rushing streams in Townshend, Vermont, USA. This atmospheric and inspiring setting provides a meeting, learning, working and living space for artists of all kinds, from all cultures, including professionals, amateurs and students.

U-HAC's new home base will continue to present a variety of seminars, workshops, festivals, performances and exhibitions and will offer special residencies for individual artists (or groups of artists) with longer term projects. Our most recent seminar which took place in August 2011, "Total Immersion in Brahms and Bach" brought together composers, conductors, instrumentalists, scholars, writers, visual and culinary artists of all ages and levels for what many participants called "a completely life-changing experience!" Individual private instruction in violin, viola, conducting, composition, french horn and piano, along with consultations in musical career planning will also be offered at the home base by U-HAC International's Artistic Directors and Founders, Joseph Swensen and Victoria Eisen.

Complementing the work done at the home base, are the U-HAC Satellites. It is our hope to establish these satellites in underprivileged and underserved rural communities across the world. Each of these U-HAC Satellites will offer a wide curriculum of workshops in the myriad arts from all cultural traditions and each will present its own world-class concert series where internationally renowned musicians will be featured and our own ENSEMBLE U-HAC will be in residence. The U-HAC Satellites will be staffed in part by a kind of "peace corps" of dedicated artist volunteers who want to use their knowledge and their art as a means for the economic and social revitalization of village life. We at U-HAC pledge that all our endeavors will be carried out with the utmost respect for the earth's environment.

The U-HAC Mentor/Apprentice Orchestral Institute is a developing program where retired professional musicians will sit alongside young students for intensive workshops in orchestral playing. These workshops will take place in rural villages worldwide providing orchestral concerts for these communities in addition to profound benefits for the participants.

The ENSEMBLE U-HAC, the resident ensemble at the U-HAC home base and at all the
U-HAC Satellites, provides an invaluable educational stepping stone in the form of performance and touring opportunities, for some of the worlds' most accomplished and promising young artists at the very beginning of their professional careers. This ever evolving ensemble of about a dozen musicians includes two senior members, Joseph Swensen (violin) and Victoria Eisen (horn) who will also be featured in many programs.

Central to the U-HAC vision is the balance between artistic idealism and social responsibility. We at U-HAC believe that artists must be urged to be not only preoccupied by the vertical climb toward the artistic ideal, but also with the corresponding horizontal outreach to humanity at large. If UNICEF provides food, and Doctors Without Borders provides medicine, U-HAC wants to help provide the arts. No one should live by bread (or meds) alone. Our biggest priority at this time will be to provide support and inspiration in the form of benefit concerts and other projects, to our neighbors in rural Vermont, the victims of tropical storm Irene.

U-HAC International is purely an arts organization and has no affiliations with any political parties or religious groups. U-HAC International does not discriminate on the basis of nationality, age, race, ethnic background, sexual orientation or gender.

*FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE GO TO OUR MEDIA PAGE TO SEE THE RECENTLY PUBLISHED ARTICLE: "UNIFORMITY, ENTITLEMENT AND SOMETHING CALLED U-HAC"

Group photo

Group photo
U-HAC musicians rehearse